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The Orville Wiki:General Guidelines
The General Guidelines are the policies that users must adhere to when using & interacting on The Orville Wiki. It is heavily encouraged that all new members read it before contributing. Purpose The Orville Wiki is meant to be a friendly, informative, and enjoyable experience for all users who contribute. For that reason, there are certain policies in place for how the general community is expected to behave in order in order to enjoy all the Wiki has to offer. It should be noted however that everything listed here are simply general guidelines for how one is expected to act on this Wiki. Similar to Wikipedia, if a rule is actively hindering proper social etiquette there are special cases it can be altered or completely ignored. Personal Attacks The Orville Wiki is a community meant to be an inclusive environment towards anyone who decides to contribute. For that reason personal attacks and abusive comments will not be tolerated on the Wiki. *Personal attacks consist of referring to other users with malicious language such as "Asshole", "Idiot", "Fucker", etc will not be tolerated at all on the Wiki. Insults of that nature create a hostile and unfriendly environment that this community wants to distance itself from. *Xenophobic slurs no matter the context are prohibited. This wiki does not tolerant bigotry or hatred, don't use those words for any reason ever. *Constructive criticism towards users are not against the rules. Nobody on here is infallible and negative feedback is sometimes needed for self improvement. Doing so in a manner that is entirely devoid of the personal attacks mentioned above will not lead to any consequences from these Guidelines. **;Ex. "I don't think the way you behave is very reasonable" is a constructive observation.: Saying that you think the way they're behaving is "stupid", however, would be a personal attack. Vandalism and Spam The Orville Wiki is vehemently opposed to any obstructive posting/editing that frequently arise from the solicitation of vandalism or spam. *Vandalism is the act of deliberately sabotaging the quality of an otherwise productive article. This can either be done by posting obscenities, incomprehensible nonsense, or blanking entire pages of their content. Vandalism however is not defined solely by these actions, any edits that are done intentionally to harm the Wiki should be viewed as vandalism and dealt with accordingly. *Spam is content which serves no other purpose than to advertise an external product or website not formally associated with The Orville. This Wiki is meant to be an educational platform and community for fans of the series. Not a means to market unrelated or unimportant content. *Posting pornographic and/or excessively violent imagery to the Wiki is never allowed and will result in severe consequences in violated. Disruption Even when users are not actively insulting or degrading members of the community, there are still many ways their behavior can be damaging to the website as a whole. *Trolling is the act of intentionally leaving edits or comments with the intent of provoking a negative reaction from users on the Wiki. It is not tolerated in this community regardless of the severity. **If an editor believes that a user is not sincere and there actions are the result of trolling, it is advised they follow the well-known internet proverb and not feed them. *Disruptive behavior that generally causes unrest in the community, even without ill suited intentions is forbidden in the same vein trolling. **;Ex. Consistently expressing negative opinions on certain characters or episodes in The Orville would be an example of violating this rule.: Even though it is possibly not done to hurt the Wiki, it still creates a disruptive environment and will simply serve to frustrate fellow users. Assume Good Faith The Orville Wiki is built on the foundations of community and team work. For that reason it highly encouraged when a user is behaving a certain way or performing a task you may disagree with, to assume good faith in their intentions. *Assuming good faith is an important virtue to remember if someone is committing an unproductive edit or standing by an objectively false idea. The best course of action instead of belittling them or assuming they're simply trying to cause problems, is to articulate why they're wrong and educate them on your thought process. **;Ex. Reverting an edit that, for no reason, goes against the Manual of Style without jumping to the conclusion it was done out of destructive intent is an example of properly assuming good faith. *It is especially important to assume good faith in regards to new editors. As they are often still learning the ropes and culture of The Orville Wiki, the way for them to properly adjust and enjoy this community to the fullest extent is to try and familiarize them with the attitudes often displayed here, and gently correcting them on mistakes they might inevitably make. *If clear evidence is presented showing someone's contributions are not done for the benefit of the community (such as Vandalism or Spam) users no longer need assume good faith in said individual. **However, even if a user has proven their intentions to be improper it does not give anyone else an excuse to act in poor faith against them. Simply continue to behave how you would and let the local Staff deal with it. Harassment Harassment is derogatory behavior dealt against another user that causes them discomfort and/or emotional duress. *The Orville Wiki has no tolerance for threatening users. Do not intimidate any contributors here with promises of physical violence, aggression, or general bullying. *Talking down to and/or about users in a harmful manner will not be tolerated. **;Discussing certain users and how they behave, as long as it remains objective and is not done in a degrading way, is not in violation of this rule. *Wikihounding is the act of targeting a specific user with the intention of undermining and belittling their edits or contributions. It is considered a form of stalking and is strictly prohibited. **Even if one isn't actively disrupting their target, the act of constantly editing a specific individual's work or responding to only their contributions on a routine basis is highly discouraged regardless. *The solicitation of personal information of any user on the Wiki for any reason is not allowed under any circumstances. Users have the absolute right to keep themselves and their information private. Any attempts at violating this will result in serious involvement from FANDOM's Staff to remove any leaked info and to handle the user responsible for the malice act. Plagiarism The Orville Wiki strives to be a valued and honorable encyclopedia for any content related to the television series. For this reason, Plagiarism, in any direction is not welcome in this community. *Even though The Orville as an Intellectual Property is owned by 20th Century Fox and Fuzzy Door Productions, all articles here are expected to contain original content. This Wiki does not condone copy & pasting information for other Orville related sources and passing it off as our own. **Using a source as a means of knowledge or inspiration for creativity is not prohibited. So long as the editor in question successfully words the content in a way that is noticeably different from the source they're taking inspiration from. *Copy & pasting information to simply put it in a giant quote, while technically not plagiarism as it's traditionally defined, is still not allowed on the Wiki. Our goal is produce pages with original content and not to simply carry articles with nothing but quotes from other sources to show for it. *Likewise, the Orville Wiki expects other Wikis and Communities to respect us and not copy & paste our articles on their websites without valid citations back to the page they originated from. Accounts As per the rules of FANDOM, every user has the ability to create an official account or edit pages anonymously. *Anonymous users are allowed to edit to the same capacity that registered users are. However, anon users are not allowed to gain staff positions on the Wiki or gain any sort of recognition for their contributions to the community. *Registered users are generally only allowed to only have one account per person. If for whatever reason they desire to use another account or two simultaneously they must inform a local staff member of such actions before proceeding, where they can approve it or not depending on if the reasoning is sound. **Using a second account to evade a block is prohibited under all circumstances. If an account has been banned it means that the owner has likely violated a Wiki policy and is barred from editing to avoid continued disruption or poor practices. Using a second account to avoid this for any reason will likely lead to further action taken against them. Usernames Every account registered on FANDOM must have a username which can entail whatever the creator desires. However, there are some limitations on what is acceptable and what is not. *Usernames must be appropriate for Wiki conduct. In particular, they cannot contain hate speech, profanity, or anything with the intent of causing disruption or trolling the Wiki. *Usernames cannot impersonate public figures or other users. **;Ex. Having a username titled TheRealSethMacFarlane when the operator in question is not associated with him would be in violation of this policy *Usernames are not allowed to insinuate specific staff positions or high end ranks within FANDOM. **;Ex. Having the username Administrator would not be acceptable. News All users are encouraged (but not forced) to write well-researched coherent blogs reporting Orville related news onto the Wiki. Which can in turn be presented on the front page. However, in order for a blog to be officially recognized and promoted by the staff it is expected to follow some basic protocol: *News blogs are expected, like mainspace articles, to be written with original content and to cite the source in which their information is coming from. Plagiarism or unoriginal blogs will be deleted. *The Orville Wiki will only promote highly credible information, any gossip or hearsay reported into blogs will not be endorsed on the front page. *News is expected to be written with fluent english and to use proper Wiki layout and formatting. Consensus The Orville Wiki is a community at its core, and for that reason is ultimately dictated by discussion and consensus above all else. Any changes on the Wiki, even made to this very document, must first start with a consensus. *Consensus can be achieved by starting a discussion anywhere on the Wiki. Either it be through Discuss, blog posts, message boards, or even page comment sections. **The only area of the site where a consensus is not valid is the Live Chat. Live Chat is not permanently documented, so a consensus reached there could not be scrutinized later. *A consensus need only consist of community discussion and is not meant to simply be a popularity contest. Ideally, a consensus' conclusion should be a well-reasoned middle ground that takes into account all suggestions. However, since this is not always possible to achieve, there are cases in which a vote may be required and a certain direction must be valued over another. *Consensuses are recognized only as ongoing for a total of one week time from their original posting. Anything passed that and the discussion is officially closed with the most supported idea (or lack thereof) being implemented on the site. **If a consensus receives no votes or an insignificant amount of attention in comparison to the amount of activity on the site, they are allowed to repost it again in three days time. As opposed to an active consensus, which can only be revisited after a minimum time of one month. *Consensus is the governing tool of this community. There is no action, policy, or user above the decision that is reached via a proper Consensus.